Why the NSA feels that a conversation from an air craft is any more worthy of "security" attention than one from somewhere else. Besides, it will pass through a ground station anyway, so why bother with special attention, cost, and required resources.

As much eavesdropping going on in the name of "security" does little for "terrorism" anyway. It's used far more commonly in drug and financial cases to replace actually doing their job. At best it's used to prove a case; at worst, it's used to see if there's a case to be made.

What I find amusing is the number of people that just go bonkers over their cell phones. That damn thing is nothing but an opportunity for LEO to bag you. It is not your friend. It will never be a source of exculpatory evidence. It only will be used against you and will never, not ever, show innocence. (OK, -almost- never)

Folks say "Oh, I'm not worried, I'm not a criminal".Er, ever see the number of times a day the average American commits a crime? You may not think you are a criminal, but so many things are illegal that most do actually commit some sort of crime every day. It's just a matter of if LEO wants to enforce the law against -you- for whatever reason takes their fancy.

Right vs. left, just stop that nonsense. There has been no right and no left for at least a decade. The divide is between extremists and people who stand with both feet on the ground. Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.

I'm not sure I agree with you completely. I agree that extremism is more easily found, I'm not sure if that's because it's more popular or if it's simply because more individuals are willing to express it.
I do believe that both the right and the left engage in logical facilities (you should pardon the pun) left and right. A few examples:

Death penalty and abortion

Reducing taxes and budgets passed

Objecting to "nanny state" (vis a vi public support) by calling it racism, bemoaning food assistance while cutting access to birth control (Family Planning funding)

Preventing private right of action and forcing consumers to use binding arbitration (Might as well not even bother, you're not going to win even if you are right)

and on and on and on. I think the average US person has simply either gone nuckin' futz or they are lied to so completely and pervasively as to have no worthwhile information to base a rational decision on. It's so bad that I don't even bother talking to people anymore (haven't for the last 20 years). It's so bad that I am seriously limiting even discussion in fora such as here.
Worse, it's no better in other countries, and even worse in some.

I blame it on the commercialization of journalism, actions by special interests, and the lack of critical thinking skills being taught in public (and many private) education. The only answer I've found so far is to simply smile, nod, and back slowly away from the more vitriolic of them, and to not bother with media news outlets anymore.

NPR, PBS, BBC and a few others are attempting to get people talking to each other. So far, I've witnessed this devolve into brutal beatings twice. Yeah. Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".

A few years ago I went through TSA with my laptop. Naturally they wanted to search it. No problem. I thought.

I'd forgotten that at the time, my documents directory auto synced whenever I logged into my network at home. At the time, I was writing a fiction story.

All kinds of excitement occurred.

Now I keep all my stuff in the cloud outside of "five eyes" treaty partners and any time I think I might have an "interaction" with LEO, I mercine wipe my drive and install fresh. I still get harassed because obviously I "must be a terrorist" because I don't use windows. Solution; Small windows boot partition by default and some random porn files. (If they don't find anything, they just keep looking. So I give them a little something obvious to keep them off my back.)

When did we start being more afraid of our own government than of terrorist? The world has gone crazy except for you and me, I'm slowly slipping away and I was never too sure about you.

Might be good for the days of sailing ships, buggy whips, whale oil lamps, slavery and no voting by women. Not too in touch with today. This is why the founders insisted that the constitution be capable of change in the first place.

Why is it when a judge finds something the right doesn't like, they are "activist" and "interpreting the constitution they way they wish it was" and when they like how the judge rules they are a "wise jurist."?

He's elected president. Not dictator. He doesn't have the power to "scrub the web."

Hum um. And he doesn't have the power to affect stock prices either.

It is true - directly has does not have that power. However, a simple observation "Gee, that's a nice business you have there. It would be a shame to have the FBI start investigating, the IRS poke around, and the SEC and FTC to look at every little thing you did and do..." is quite effective in securing cooperation on matters not directly within the delineated powers of any politician. This is one of many factors which seems to have escaped - or been ignored as unimportant - the notice of those that elected Mr. Trump.

Because President Elect Trump is a bastion of careful thought, absolute veracity, and considered policy I'm sure this will never, not ever, be an issue.

The H1B visa program is an excellent choice as a bell weather of what a Trump administration can be expected to do for the average person. Around tax time next year (April 15th) is about 90 days in office. Set a reminder folks. "April 15th. Look around and see what the H1B visa abuse situation is. TRUMP Promise."

Will he keep it or will he break it? I don't know. I have my thoughts but I will have them settled one way or the other by May.

Ever wonder just what those 100 emails with classified information might have contained? How it would have destroyed our country if those secrets had been compromised?

Take a look other classified information that has leaked. What you see are the things our own government is required to tell us, but won't, and if not that, then things that make politicians and bureaucrats look bad.

No, the state department does not get OPSEC, OPLAN, or SCI materials. They get stuff like whose diplomats are vulnerable to being compromised, who they are having affairs with. They do not get things like troop strength. They do not get operational security information. They do not get a lot because they are diplomats - people that get paid to talk a lot. Like anyone is going to give a bunch of gas bags a lot of hot security information.

Another telling point is that there is no criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton, nor will there ever be. See? Total red herring and it fooled one hell of a lot of people.

The trick of politics isn't to tell the truth. The trick is to tell your voters what they want to hear regardless of fact.

It really doesn't matter to me who "won". None of them are going to make my life any easier and none of them have the least interest in increasing my paycheck. I found this to be true for several decades now.

I've noticed over the last 15 years that news reporting appears to deliberately incite rage in it's consumers. I conclude the reason is because happy news doesn't cause interaction that can be measured, while outrage causes people to post comments, link, and send to friends. These actions can be tracked, and if it can be tracked, it can be monetized. An example is Info Wars site. Most of their news is extremely slanted and almost seems to jerk the froth out of their average reader's mouth, while simultaneously reporting things dishonestly. When one bothers to fact check and independently confirm their stories, it is my opinion that they are almost without exception false to fact or put in the worst light possible. Nor is it confined to such fringe lunatic sites, this is found in Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, and to a lessor extent in CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR.

TL;DR: News is worthless. They all have an agenda and they all push it.

Farming isn't planting a seed and jumping out of the way before it sprouts and knocks your eye out. Things like market conditions, projected harvests, government regulations (try planting cotton without letting the USDA know about it!), how a field drains, where the culverts have a habit of overflowing, and heck, what field the boys around will ride their ATVs in or their families make an impromptu road though change the factors in how a field is maintained.

Sure, a tractor that drives itself is handy. In fact, it is a tremendous help in preventing "greening" (running over your own crops). However, a human will always be needed on any farm of a meaningful scale (anything more than a few thousand acres).The unpredictable things around will simply make complete robotic farming impossible. Things like (happened last month) thieves stole the diesel out of the fuel dump. 170K gallons of diesel vanished in a 47 hour period. That's about 20 truck loads. (we all thought they were -delivering- it, not hauling it away!)

As I see it, the issue of trustworthy sources really isn't the issue. In my opinion, the real issue is that many simply don't believe even trustworthy sources if the news they report is disagreeable to the person consuming it.

In other words, many now reject any reality that they do not wish to believe. This is tantamount to insanity.

An example is the recent election. If one supported President Elect Trump, then all the reports of his personal and business conduct were "liberal media". If one was a supporter of Secretary Clinton, the issues with multiple congressional investigations were "right wing propaganda, old fat chewed endlessly".

This is not to take a stance of any of them. I'm pointing out the situation. I don't have any opinion on a Fix for it either. If the world is going crazy, let me off at the next stop please. I'm not enjoying the ride.

Orifice De Pot doesn't read the news I see. Otherwise they'd know what happened to Wells Fargo when they pulled the same crap. On the other hand, why on earth would anyone trust Office Depot with a computer? They didn't fill my paper order correctly so I stopped using them. Hey, if you can't get paper right, why on earth would you expect me to believe you can get a computer right?

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"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100